Ok guys i'm posting this because i'm about ready to give up and looking for suggestions or ideas. So i've now been through 3 exhausts and i'm yet to be fully satisfied. First I had stock with DP and secondary cat delete, then VRSF, then Active Autowerke. Below i'll put what I don't like about each and the vids.
Stock w/ secondary cat delete: Honestly no real complaints. It had zero drone which was nice but it was a bit too quiet for my taste and the tone wasn't all that great.
VRSF: VRSF was probably by far my favorite in terms of volume. It was quiet but when you stepped on it loud. The tone was amazing, it was a smooth 6 cylinder turbo sound no raspiness like the usual N54 exhausts I hear. My problem with it was mainly how low it hangs. With my car lowered it would scrape on every speedbump even when I took a huge angle. It was just too much to worry about.
AA Exhaust: AA fixed my issues with hanging low but worsened sound. The drone is pretty bad although bearable I guess, the tone is pretty good most of the time, but volume is pretty loud. My biggest problem with this exhaust is under heavy loud like 4th gear 40 MPH when you give it maybe half throttle the exhaust sounds like complete shit. Literally sounds like a modded honda civic accelerating.
You can kinda hear the honda civic sound i'm talking about in this vid:
Anyways so now i'm stuck. I have a buyer for my AA exhaust and I can't figure out what to do next. I'm debating if I should try another exhaust like AE and hope it doesn't have that civic sound I hate, or just mod the stock exhaust. If I mod stock I would replace my e90 resonator with an x-pipe and add vibrant resonators where the secondary cat delete was. That would effectively make it a coupe exhaust with resonators instead of secondary cats. The reason i'm not sure if this is the best route is it wouldn't be all that cheap and after all i'm still going to have the shitty flowing and heavy stock exhaust. I feel like if i'm going to spend money i'd be better off getting a better flowing aftermarket exhaust that will add a tiny bit of performance and give me weight savings.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Any exhausts that you have on your car that you think would give me everything i'm looking for? Any help would be appreciated.